Hearst to launch a wireless e-reader — The publisher plans to introduce a large-format device this year based on electronic-ink technology. — NEW YORK (Fortune) — Against a backdrop of plummeting ad revenue for newspapers and magazines, and rising costs for paper and delivery …

Amazon Backs off Text-to-Speech Feature in Kindle — Amazon announced today it will let publishers decide whether they want the new Kindle e-book device to read their books aloud. — The text-to-speech feature allows Kindle owners to have books read to them in a male or female computerized voice.

Amazon Kindle 3 Rumors Surface: Bigger, Better (Of Course) — The ink has barely dried on the new production Amazon Kindle 2 e-readers and now there's a hot rumor surfacing about the Kindle 3. Among the speculation is one interesting suggestion: The Kindle version 3 may actually arrive on the shelves before Christmas.

Apple issues App Store-wide Emoji take-down order — Apple has issued an App Store-wide take-down of all Emoji-enabling iPhone applications. There may be a few reasons for this decision, ranging from the gray area of how developers are switching on Emoji support to possible licensing issues.

Calacanis, Lindzon To Box For Charity — It's on: Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis and Stocktwits/Wallstrip co-founder (and SAI investor) Howard Lindzon, who periodically spar on Twitter, will duke it out in real life. — The two will box for charity 100 days from tomorrow, which is... sometime in June.

A Second Rogue Facebook Application in Just a Week? — In a second attack, extremely reminiscent of the one that took place this weekend, Facebook users have once again been victimized by cybercriminals. Reports started surfacing this afternoon of yet another rogue Facebook application posting notifications …

DoCoMo halts BlackBerry Bold sales due to overheating — TOKYO (Reuters) - NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's biggest mobile phone operator, said on Friday it has halted sales of Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold because the phone can overheat while the battery is being recharged.

Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone — Apple's iPhone has wowed most of the globe — but not Japan, where the handset is selling so poorly it's being offered for free. — What's wrong with the iPhone, from a Japanese perspective? Almost everything: the high monthly data plans that go with it …

BlackBerry 9630 is the Niagara, Verizon World Edition? — So... we've just got word from a really trusted source, dropping bombs all around on the BlackBerry “Niagara”. First off, the model number we're told is the BlackBerry 9630, not 8930 or 9030, or anything like that.

Microsoft's window on the future — For nearly 18 years, Rick Rashid has been the man with a unique window into Microsoft's future. — As the company's senior vice president of research, he is responsible for an important part of the software corporation's mammoth research and development operation.

iVerse brings comic books to iPhone, Android — There's no question that comic books and magazines will eventually have a portable platform suited to them, just as the iPod took nearly four years to reach a saturation level as the de facto portable music player.

Confessions of a Facebook Social Climber — You too can become important. To start, all you need is one celebrity friend. — I recently became friends with Charlie Sheen — but not exactly. It's a little complicated. You see, I've spent the past three months moving up the Facebook social ladder …

Microsoft App-V Support for the Windows 7 Beta — Our MDOP customers have told us that they want to see Windows 7 Support for Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) so that they can move ahead with their application testing for enterprise deployments of Windows 7 early on. We heard you loud and clear.

‘Face of Facebook’ defends his site's policies — CEO of red-hot social network says that users control their own information — The face of Facebook, the burgeoning social networking site, was supposedly in damage-control mode, but you wouldn't have known it from looking at the site's 24-year-old founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

Finding our own little worlds has never been easier — What an author won't do for a book. — In 2004, San Jose State University associate professor Andy Wood decided to embark upon an experiment: He would fly from San Jose to New York, rent a car and drive back the 3,000 miles …

Perfect Online Video Advertising Model: Choose Your Advertiser — Many companies and visionaries have pontificated about the future of video ads and different techniques for monetizing online videos. A big part of this is driven by the fact that while YouTube is a huge user success, its a less proven monetization success.

Will the Future of the Web Be More Like the Present? — When I was a kid one of my favorite parts of Disney World was Tomorrowland's Carousel of Progress. It was steeped in 1950's futurism: Why, of course! Every family will have their own electric paint mixer in the future!

Egypt: Land of Pyramids, the Sphinx...and Outsourcing? — India's tech boom has inspired other developing nations to promote themselves as outsourcing destinations. The latest to try to cash in: Egypt. — Egypt seems like an unlikely place for Western companies to send tech work and open call centers …

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From signed up to satisfied — Getting new users is easy; keeping them is hard. Join Intercom co-founder Des Traynor as he explains how to bridge the gap between a company's initial traction and sustained success.